


The Definition of Love

by GeckoGirl89



Category: Friends (TV)
Genre: Angst, Background Chandler/Monica, Community: comment_fic, Denial of Feelings, Episode: s08e14 The One with the Secret Closet, F/M, Falling In Love, Feelings Realization, Ficlet, Forbidden Love, Guilt, Introspection, Joey POV, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 03:24:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9529583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeckoGirl89/pseuds/GeckoGirl89
Summary: Joey doesn't know what this thing with Rachel is, at first.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "Any, Any, WTF Love Is" on comment-fic: http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/789389.html?thread=101958285#t101958285
> 
> The prompt just made me think of Joey's confusion surrounding his feelings for Rachel after the date and how he figured out that it was love. Also, this has a fair bit of background Chandler/Monica because I was looking something up on TV tropes and it pointed out how Joey is basically a "shipper on deck" for them. In this, they're basically Joey's model of how two people are when they're in love.

Joey doesn't know what this thing with Rachel is, at first.   
  
He can recognize love when he sees it in others. A long time ago, he saw it with Ross and Rachel, but the first time he wanted it for himself was when he saw Monica and Chandler cuddling together in the same chair and doing a crossword puzzle together. He didn't just want a serious girlfriend, as Monica had suggested. He wanted the friendship and the closeness too. He wanted to just be with someone, and have it fit and make sense the way Monica and Chandler always did even before they were together, and then after, too.  
  
Rachel and Joey aren't really the crossword puzzle type, but they watch movies in the same recliner together. Joey shouldn't think this way, but it felt so right and natural to hold her when she got scared by the dog in  _Cujo_ , and his heart felt whole when she buried her head in his chest. That date was easier and more fun than a date he's been on with any other woman, and he realized that Rachel was right when she said that it was because he had never dated her before. He thinks he could have the friendship and the closeness with her.  
  
But nobody else would look at the two of them the way he looks at Monica and Chandler, with that mixture of friendship and admiration. Everyone would think they were wrong together. Instead of feeling happy for them, everyone would hate him for betraying Ross.  
  
Rachel is just as off limits to him as Monica is. But there's a part of Joey (tiny, but still shamefully present) that wants to be with Rachel so badly that he doesn't care.  
  
Isn't love supposed to make you a better person, like Chandler and Monica balanced each other out? Isn't love supposed to make you happy, like it did with them?  
  
He isn't allowed to be in love. That's why he's so willing to believe Phoebe when she says it's just a crush. A temporary infatuation is a forgivable, minor transgression. He tells Monica and Chandler what Phoebe said, hoping that they believe him, that his words appease their shocked and dismayed expressions.  
  
He wishes that he could believe himself. But it isn't going away, like Phoebe said it would. He's had more serious feelings for a few women, especially Kate, but this thing with Rachel blows them all out of the water with its intensity. And it doesn't feel like a rush of feelings. It's more like Joey had stumbled around with a blindfold on regarding Rachel, but that date ripped it off. Joey saw a glimpse of everything he could have with Rachel, and he wanted more.  
  
Is this what love is, the soaring happiness he feels just from seeing her face, the nervous struggle to not blurt out all of his feelings at once, the painful longing to be with her despite the crushing guilt that thought causes? Is this love, the way he easily imagines forever with her? Was it love before, when Joey asked Rachel to keep living with him and didn't care about how a baby in the apartment might affect his dating habits? Was it love even before that, the special times they had once they started living together with the paper towel game, Joey's boat, the Soapies, the way they decided they were the Cobras, and a million other things?  
  
Joey didn't know what it was back then, but he knows what it is now. He does the one thing he never imagined doing and he encourages Rachel to move in with Ross, ripping out his own heart in the process.  
  
It turns out love doesn't make you a better person, but it doesn't make you a worse person either. He would have done this sooner if he hadn't been in love with Rachel, but now his own conscience forced him to do the right thing. Neither of them sees the miserable expression on his face when they hug, so happy to be together, and Joey hopes they never do.  
  
Love for Joey is not crossword puzzles and morning kisses. It's movies in the dark and embraces that mean too much. It's not joy and champagne at a wedding reception surrounded by friends and family. It's loneliness and expired orange juice in his apartment, with only Chandler for company once he stops by. It's not two people fitting together perfectly like they were meant to be. It's one person who developed forbidden feelings so wrong they can never be spoken.  
  
Joey knows what love is now. He wishes he had never learned.


End file.
